For years, claims and complaint handling sat in the category of things brokers knew mattered but treated as a matter of good practice rather than hard obligation. That framework is over. ASIC has named claims and complaint handling failures as a 2026 enforcement priority, and the numbers behind that decision are hard to argue with.
AFCA received 111,373 total complaints in 2025, up 14%, with general insurance rising 17% to 34,231. The single most complained-about issue across every category of financial services was delay in claim handling, generating 9,274 complaints on its own. That is not a wording problem or a coverage dispute. It is a service and process problem, and it is now squarely on the regulator’s radar.
Set against that backdrop, the broker position looks remarkably strong. Complaints about brokers remain below 1% of AFCA’s total, sitting at 0.8%. Brokers are not the source of the pain clients are experiencing. That gap between the volume of insurer-related complaints and the near-absence of broker complaints is a genuine competitive advantage for anyone who handles claims and disclosure properly. In a market where delay is the number one grievance, the broker who keeps a claim moving and communicates clearly is doing the thing clients complain most about not getting.
The rewritten Code raises the bar again. It requires insurers to give clients the documents they relied upon when assessing a claim or application, which changes how information flows through you to the client and back. Managing that flow cleanly, so the right documents reach the right party at the right time, becomes part of the process you are expected to run rather than a courtesy you extend.
There is a second-order effect worth planning for. The Code’s wholesale and retail split creates a two-speed compliance environment. Brokers weighted toward personal lines and SME work operate under the fuller set of protections and obligations, while those focused on larger commercial risks sit outside much of it. If your book spans both, you are effectively running two compliance postures at once, and the systems that keep those straight are the ones that keep you out of the 0.8%.
The direction of travel is clear. What was once encouraged is becoming enforceable, and the firms that already treat claims handling as a discipline rather than an afterthought are the ones ASIC’s priorities will trouble least. We wrote more on the regulator’s thinking in our look at what ASIC’s 2026 enforcement priorities actually mean for ARs.
Getting claims handling right, and keeping it right as obligations tighten, draws on both process and judgement. Our compliance and regulatory support keeps you current on changes like these, and our business mentoring helps you build the processes that turn good claims handling into a durable advantage. To see how that would work for your business, get in touch.